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Scott & Ruth Millar

GOD IS CALLING US TO PLANT BILINGUAL/MULTICULTURAL
CHURCHES IN TORONTO.

Ruth and I believe it is the call of God on our lives. We want to be involved in reaching
people that are coming to Toronto from around the world, the Reverse Great
Commission. Toronto is the most ethnically diverse city in the world. It is a strategic
place to plant churches. God has brought together a team of believers led by Pastor
Francisco Aular to plant 20 bilingual multi ethnic churches throughout the Greater
Toronto Area.

THE NEED IS GREAT

Statistics on the densely populated Toronto to Montreal corridor of 12 million people
show that it is one of the least evangelized areas of the world:

• Only 1-2% of the people are involved in an evangelical church. Mission experts would
classify this as an unreached people group, and it is right here in North America.

• The vast majority of the few churches that do exist are plateaued or declining. For
example:
The Baptist General Conference has only two small Filipino churches in the city.
The Canadian National Baptist Convention (CNBC), the group we will be
working with, has less than .02% of the population attending their churches in
Ontario (the most influential province in Canada). As in most evangelical
denominations, CNBC baptisms are dramatically down since 2006.

• The chart below compares Southern Baptist (SBC) work in USA to Canadian Baptists
(CNBC) and Southern Ontario, where Toronto is.

Population

CNBC orSBCChurches

CNBC orSBC ChurchMembers

Church toPopulation Ratio

Church Member toPopulation Ratio

Ontario

13,000,000

45

2,300

1 to 288,000

1 to 5652

San Diego County

3,000,000

130

27,000

1 to 23,000

1 to 111

Georgia

10,000,000

2300

1,400,000

1 to 2,777

1 to 7.1

• Ontario does not have many other large strong evangelical churches like both San
Diego and Georgia have. For example, in San Diego 60,000+ attend Calvary
Chapel related churches. Atlanta has several churches like North Pointe, that have
more members than all Baptist churches in Ontario combined.

• There are 450,000 college students in the Greater Toronto Area alone. The best
estimates are that less than 2000 students attend any “on campus” evangelical
ministry. This is less than 1/2 of one percent. We must field more workers for
this highly strategic mission.

• The Hispanic ethnic group of over 300,000 is largely unreached.

GOD HAS BEEN PREPARING US FOR THIS MINISTRY.

• We have planted churches in tough areas of Northwest Argentina in Santiago del
Estero and Catamarca.

• We will not only be planting directly, but also working through other planters. Our
experience in assessing, coaching, and training planters will be useful.

• We have also prepared ourselves to work with different nationalities. Scott has
visited cities in India, Indonesia, Palestine and Israel and has met leaders from
around the world. GTA because is the most international city in the world. In fact
more than half the people that live in GTA were foreign born rather than
Canadian born.

• Few organizations are successfully planting churches. Discovering better ways to reach
people and plant churches in Toronto is needed. We need to be on the front edge
of ministering to the ethnic communities of North America.